


between the cracks

by phylocalist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Pirates, Fluff, Galra Keith (Voltron), Galran Prince Keith (Voltron), M/M, and keith is a lonely galran prince, lance is a robin-hood-esque space pirate fleeing from the law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 13:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phylocalist/pseuds/phylocalist
Summary: Lance stands up, the water lapping at his knees, and he turns to watch the second star set. It takes but a moment, and suddenly the light is gone as the star vanishes from the horizon. He sighs, content, and stretches, ready to get back to Blue and find a place to sleep.And then, he feels a dagger press against his neck.“Who are you and what do you want here?” A voice says into his ear.





	between the cracks

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally written for the "this is a spaceship" zine that, sadly, has since been cancelled. i'm not really into voltron anymore, but i really liked some of the writing in this piece and i would prefer to share it with people who might enjoy it. <3
> 
> if you want to check out more pieces from the former participants of the zine, do check out their [tumblr](http://thisisaspaceshipzine.tumblr.com) and/or [twitter](http://twitter.com/spaceshipszine).

_Even a thief needs his rest_ , Lance thinks as he lowers Blue into the green, blue and red unknown planet. He has ventured outside the zone charted by The Union, so there really is no way of knowing what awaits him down there. So far, though, from what he has been able to gather in his fly-over, the planet seems desolate—there are no signs of life or civilization anywhere, so Lance assumes it’s safe to say the planet is deserted.

After having spent the last few weeks alone in space, communications all cut off out of fear of being found out, he thinks the company would’ve probably been good for him, but maybe it’s better this way. Even outside the known universe, there is still a possibility of whoever could live here to rat him out to the authorities, all for whatever huge sum of money the government has put on his head after the last heist.

(Having seen the numbers himself, Lance has been sorely tempted to bring himself in just to cash out the insane amount of money offered as a reward more than once, so he can’t say he can fault whoever would think to do that.)

Lance carefully lowers Blue on top of a deserted expanse of red land and stretches once she’s safely parked. He can feel her apprehension just as well as her curiosity, so he places a hand on top of the shut-off control board and smiles.

_It’ll be ok. I don’t think there’s anyone here. We’ll just stay for a few days until everything calms down and then we’ll visit home again._

His words seem to calm her down, but there’s still that hyper-awareness that Blue always approaches a new planet with, especially a truly unknown one like this. Still, Lance can feel Blue’s purr, her own way of reassuring him everything will be fine. His lips stretch wider and his smile turns warmer.

 _Good girl_ , he thinks and gives one last caress to the control board. _I’ll be back soon_.

Outside the air is warm and humid, just like back home, and it hits Lance so strongly it almost knocks him down to his knees. It’s been so long since he’s been home, with his family and his friends, and he suddenly misses it so much it feels like his heart is weighing him down. He clutches his chest, laughing at himself a little bit.

“Calm down. This is exactly why we came here,” he tells himself, taking a deep breath in.

He straightens out and fully takes in the view in front of him. It’s a beach, there is no other possible word to describe it, a seemingly infinite expanse of blue ocean right at his fingertips. This was exactly why he chose this strange planet; the ground was red, sure, but there was green vegetation growing on the land and there was an _ocean_ , an honest to God blue ocean that covered about 50% of the small dwarf planet. From above, the planet looked like a redder, smaller version of Earth and nostalgia had won him over this time, so Blue had immediately analyzed the atmosphere’s composition and environment, only to discover it was almost exactly the same as back in Earth.

As he takes a step into the sea, the water lapping at his ankles in the infinite loop of push and pull of the ocean’s dance, Lance can’t believe his luck. This is like a home away from home.

Laughter bubbles up in his throat without his consent and it comes out in an explosion of giggles. There is disbelief and nostalgia and longing in them, but there is also pure and sheer happiness. Of finally being so close to something that resembles home, of finally being right here next to the place that gave him life. Of course his mother would smack him over the head if she ever were to hear him say that, but they both know it’s true; there’s something about being born by the ocean that cements something deep within you: something warm and powerful, the same force that creates hurricanes and breathes new life into the world at the same time.

In a hurry, Lance takes off his shirt and his pants, throwing them away somewhere on the shore. Suddenly giddy, he walks into the ocean until the water reaches his waist and then dips his head under the water. He stays under for a few seconds, just because he can, and when he comes up for air he’s laughing again.

He swims around for a good few hours before he starts to get tired. Because this planet orbits a two-star system, time passes differently here, so when Lance starts to get ready to get out of the water, one of the two stars that illuminate this planet is still setting, casting the ocean and red planet in a beautiful purple light.

Lance stands up, the water lapping at his knees, and he turns to watch the second star set. It takes but a moment, and suddenly the light is gone as the star vanishes from the horizon. He sighs, content, and stretches, ready to get back to Blue and find a place to sleep.

And then, he feels a dagger press against his neck.

“Who are you and what do you want here?” A voice says into his ear.

His first reaction is to panic, because he’s been caught and he’s going to be given to the police and his family is going to get into so much trouble because of him and—

 _They don’t know who you are_ , his rational voice says. _They’re asking_ who _you are!_

Lance takes a deep breath and calms himself, pushes Blue away from the corner of his mind where he could feel her trying to poke in. He can solve this by himself, no need to get her involved.

“Can I lower my arms first?” Lance asks, because having his arms up in the air like this is getting uncomfortable. He feels the person holding him hesitate, caught off-guard, and for a moment he thinks he could make a run for his clothes and his own dagger hidden in one of the pockets of his pants, or his gun sitting on a holster on his belt, but he waits instead.

The person clears their throat before answering, “Yes, you can.”

Lance lowers his arms slowly, not wanting to scare the person and make them do something rash. Once they’re down, he speaks again, “I’m only here to lay low for a while, I don’t mean any harm. I thought this planet was deserted, I didn’t see any signs of life when I flew over before…?” The last sentence comes out as a question, because now he’s curious.

The figure behind him hesitates again and now Lance is sure they aren’t trying to senselessly kill him, so he lets himself relax slightly.

“No, there’s… no one but me. No one alive, at least,” they say, and their voice sounds sad in a way. Melancholic.

The person lowers their dagger from Lance’s neck and turns him around by the shoulders. In the sparse light of the stars above, Lance can only make out a few features of the stranger’s face; a sharp jawline, a mouth stretched into a thin line and two apprehensive, lightly glowing purple eyes. And, Lance notices with disbelief, a fucking mullet.

“I need your help,” the figure says.

Lance, unable to hold it in any longer, laughs in their goddamn face.

 

*

 

When Lance wakes up again he finds himself unable to move, his hands and feet tied to a chair in some empty room. The left side of his face is throbbing and a memory of a fist coming straight to it after bursting out in laughter to the stranger’s face suddenly flashes behind his eyelids. Alright, he might’ve deserved the punch, but not the being-tied-to-a-chair bit.

“Well,” a voice comes from what seems to be the entrance of the room. There, Lance can now see, the stranger from before is standing. Their purple eyes are glowing dimly, but they’re also alight with a fire more akin to anger, and their voice is sardonic. “Look who’s finally up.”

“Well,” Lance shoots back playfully. He briefly glances to the stranger’s head, where two perky furry ears twitch. “Wonder who put me to sleep, huh?”

The stranger narrows their eyes. “You deserved it.”

Lance shrugs, smirking. “I probably did.”

The stranger steps into the room, slowly walking in circles around Lance’s chair like a sleek panther hunting its prey. Lance goes dizzy trying to follow them with his eyes.

“Will you finally tell me who you are?” The stranger says once they’ve stopped behind Lance’s back, exactly where he can’t see them.

Lance breathes in through his nose, trying to calm down. They can’t see what the stranger is doing or if they’re holding a weapon; they could kill him any second, but he forces himself not to panic. They needed help, right? That’s what they asked of Lance. They won’t kill him, not yet.

“Where am I?” Lance retorts.

“Name first.” Their voice is dry and Lance knows they won’t budge. He purses his lips.

“Lance,” he gives up with a sigh and stops himself short of blurting out his full name. He grimaces and quickly tries to think up a convincing last name. “Lance Cortez.”

“Alright, Lance,” the stranger says, their voice traveling with them as they move to stand in front of Lance, arms crossed, ears perked. “My name is Keith Grak’ta and I am the crown prince of this planet’s kingdom, Galrynkea.” A small smirk starts to appear on Keith’s face and Lance shivers. He doesn’t like the look of that smile. “And _you_ will help me bring it back to life.”

 

*

 

It takes a few hours, three different stories and two potty breaks—one of which Lance used to calm down Blue, who he could feel incessantly worrying over him through their psychic link—for Lance to get to know and understand the full history of Galrynkea.

Keith explains the curse to him; how their colonizers had put them to sleep as a punishment and for safekeeping until they were ready to come back and “claim them” once more. Somehow Keith had escaped the curse and is now, and has been for almost 10 years, the only living citizen in the kingdom.

When Keith finishes retelling the events of the last Great War, the one that had put all of the Galran people to sleep, there’s a lull in the conversation that Lance doesn’t quite know how to fill. There’s static electricity in the air, silence so thick it feels oppressing, but he can’t think of anything to say.

Keith talks like a prince alright. He’s diplomatic, assertive and commanding; there’s nothing unsure in the way he talks or stands. Yet, as he’s talking about his family and all the time he’s spent completely alone in this small red planet, Lance can see the armor crack. He knows, because he can see it clear as day, that underneath the prince trying to save his kingdom out of royal duty there’s a boy who simply misses his family and his neighbors. Underneath it all, there’s immense longing and loneliness. And Lance’s chest tightens, because it’s one thing to be homesick thanks to being away from home, and a completely different one to be in your home yet be utterly alone.

The silence stretches. The lights in the floor flicker and Lance can see Keith’s shoulders and ears sag. There’s something there, in the movement and the empty space in between them, that prompts Lance to reach out a hand and softly place it on top of Keith’s pale purple shoulder.

“I’ll help you,” he says, voice more confident than he feels. He sees Keith’s ears twitch as they perk up and has to resist the urge to reach out and touch them. “We’ll wake them up.”

Keith’s eyes steel, the defeat from before completely gone from his posture. His mouth is a thin, determined line. Lance isn’t sure which of them he’s trying to convince when he says, “Yes. We will.”

They look into each other’s eyes for a moment and Lance feels suddenly much more confident than he should. And then his stomach interrupts the silence with a loud growling sound. He bursts out laughing, unable to keep himself from doing it, and gives Keith a sheepish smile.

“Let’s just get some food first?”

Keith smirks and this time it isn’t scary. Lance thinks it may even be kind of cute.

“Sure.”

 

*

 

They spend time together: planning, making guesses and trying and failing, over and over, to make an antidote. It’s awkward, at first, because Keith has been stuck alone in a planet for almost a decade, nose buried in books and potion-making; and Lance has been stuck with only himself—and Blue, a purr reminds him—for almost as much as that, stealing, giving to the people who need it and running away. Neither of them have experience dealing with people for extended periods of time and it shows: heavy silences that scream to be filled, awkward bumps of limbs and muttered apologies, embarrassed gazes held for too long.

But, surprisingly and with time, they start to fit. The sharp corners of the puzzle pieces that refused to slot together get slowly weathered down, give way for changes and open a space for adapting to each other. Morning research sessions become having breakfast together. Evening experimentation becomes comfortable reading sessions and conversations over a coffee cup. Nightly exhaustion becomes a cup of tea and a pat on the back.

It isn’t that they stop looking for a cure, because that is the ultimate end goal of their cohabitation, but they manage to enjoy the moments in between the hard work too. They learn to laugh at dumb jokes and to hide tears from a painful memory in someone else’s shoulder. They learn trust and vulnerability and what every single author ever meant by _a smile that lights up the room_. The world outside doesn’t get any less darker nor does the situation get any less dire, but even in darkness can light prevail.

And, like that, in between laughter and tears and exhaustion, it sneaks up on them. It’s not like it wasn’t there and it suddenly appeared; it’s more like it was there all along but they refused to see it until it got impossible to ignore.

In the cracks of their mismatched puzzle roses bloom as Keith and Lance finally accept that, somehow, love grew.

 

*

 

Keith’s heart races as he watches the droplets fall from the pipet onto the test tube. They slide down the crystal at such a slow pace that for a moment he really thinks they’re mocking him, lengthening the process just to elongate his suffering.

The droplets finally touch the purple-ish liquid below and Keith can feel his heart hammering against his ribs, his pulse going a thousand miles per hour. He’s perfected this recipe time and time again, coming up with a failure each time, but _it has to work this time_. It has to, there’s no other option. If this doesn’t work, they have to start from scratch because Keith’s entire research, all 10 years of it plus the months Lance has helped him out, would be garbage. Nothing.

His vision hyperfocus on the test tube and his world is reduced to the few ounces of liquid contained within. A beat passes, and then another, and then another and nothing has happened, _why has nothing happened, this_ _has to work!_ Keith pulls at his hair, subconsciously mindful of his sensitive ears, and watches as a miracle happens right in front of his eyes.

The liquid in the test tube, as if by divine intervention, changes from the previous, dull purple tint to a bright, shimmering golden.

Keith holds his breath for a second, hoping that this isn’t a fluke, that it’s _actually_ happening, finally. Five seconds pass and the liquid lazily swirls inside the test tube. Ten seconds pass and the liquid shines, golden bright.

Refusing to take his eyes off of it, Keith stares at the liquid inside the test tubes as he yells, turning the volume of his voice up as loud as he can, “Lance! Lance!”

A head pops into view on the direction of the door but Keith can only see it from his peripheral vision. Even distorted as he is by the lack of visibility, Lance looks slightly worried. “Keith?! What happened?”

Finally willing himself to look up from the potion, Keith smiles in the direction of Lance and is greeted by the view of the same smile spreading through Lance’s face, lighting it up beautifully.

“Don’t tell me you...?” Lance can’t even finish his sentence before Keith is nodding slowly, in disbelief himself but just as elated.

“ _We_ did it, Lance. We truly did it,” Keith whispers as he lowers his gaze back at the test tube. The golden liquid is still shimmering inside it.

“Let’s… Your mom…” Lance takes a step into the room but Keith is moving before he even finishes his sentence. Keith speeds past him, test tube tightly but safely gripped in his fist, and pulls Lance by the arm right behind him.

They sprint to the royal chambers, the room where the Queen has laid in, sleeping for over a decade. Keith stops for a moment with his hand on the handle, breathless. And then, Lance sees his ears droop. Keith doesn’t express himself in many ways, Lance has learned over the months, but also over their time spent together has Lance learned how to understand _the way_ Keith speaks; because he _does_ speak, and very loudly, but he rarely does it with words.

His ears are one of the biggest tell-tale signs of his mood, so when Lance sees Keith’s ears droop in such a way that speaks of fear and disappointment, he worries.

“Keith…? Is everything oka—?”

“Will you—” Keith speaks, rushed and loud like it’s being punched out of him. Lance hears him swallow. “Will you go back to your home after my family comes back?”

Everything clicks into place in Lance’s mind and he smiles at Keith’s back, warm and understanding. “That was my plan, yeah. Finally going back home after this so-called vacation.”

“I…” Keith turns abruptly and his face is clouded with fear. He’s holding the test tube so tightly Lance worries it might break.

“And I was wondering,” Lance continues, cutting him off with a warm smile. “If you wanted to come along. Find out where I come from and all that.” He waves a hand in the air dismissively, like it’s not a big deal.

But Keith’s eyes shine and his ears perk up in that happy way and it makes him look like he’s just been handed the moon. Lance blushes, suddenly embarrassed.

“I. Yes,” Keith says, and he sounds breathless. He giggles, one of those rare laughs that Lance has learned to treasure, and pulls their faces closer together and _oh_. Lance remembers this. Keith rubs their noses together slowly in what Lance has learned is a very intimate gesture between Galra to demonstrate affection. When Keith pulls back, he’s red across the face and shyly looks up at him. “I want to go with you. And now,” he turns back to the door and Lance hears the click of the knob turning. Lance can’t see his face, but he’s sure Keith is smirking devilishly as he says, “Let’s go meet my parents”

As Queen Krolia finally wakes up from her decade-long slumber, Lance thinks that an alien boyfriend from an uncharted planet on the edge of the galaxy will probably be harder to explain to his family than the fact that he steals for a living.

But some things are worth the trouble.

(Keith is.)


End file.
